Australia’s PM Anthony Albanese calls federal election for 3 May

Australians will head to the polls on 3 May for general elections after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese triggered a snap election. The incumbent’s centre-left Labor Party is seeking a second three-year term.

Albanese drove to the Governor General Sam Mostyn’s official residence on Friday to trigger the election. The date was announced at a news conference at Parliament House.

The election will likely be dominated by the ongoing cost of living and housing shortage crises. The two major candidates in the upcoming race will be the Labor’s Antony Albanese, and opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who heads the Liberal party.

Australia uses an absolute majority system, requiring any one candidate to secure over 50% of the vote to win the race. Both candidates will likely to require a coalition to push their results over the required threshold.

Cost of living pressures increased across Australia since Albanese came to power with 12 interest rate hikes since the last election.

Australia’s central bank however reduced the benchmark cash rate by a quarter percentage point to 4.1% in February, in a sign that the worst of the inflationary pressures has passed.

“Over the last few years, the world has thrown a lot at Australia. In uncertain times, we cannot decide the challenges that we will face, but we can determine how we respond,” Albanese said.

“Our government has chosen to face küresel challenges the Australian way: helping people under cost-of-living pressure while building for the future,” he added.

Peter Dutton launched the Liberal-National Coalition – commonly referred to as ‘the coalition’ – by promising better economic management. He’s pledged to increase support for small businesses and startups, after more than 29,000 small businesses failed under Labor leadership over the past three years.

“It’s a choice about who can better manage our economy and, of course, the question that Australians need to ask is are you better off today, is our country better off today, than three years ago?” Dutton said to reporters.

Housing shortages are also a major issue plaguing Australia. Albanese promised to manage the crisis by building 1.2 million homes over five years, but the 2023 pledge has got off to a slow start.

Dutton on the other hand has promised to reduce competition for housing by reducing immigration. He would also allow Australians to spend savings in their compulsory workspace pension funds on down payments to buy new homes.

Both parties have also pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emission to net zero by 2050. Albanese intends to do so by relying on renewable energy sources, such as solar panels and wind turbines to replace coal and gas.

Dutton however wants to build seven state-funded nuclear power plants to realise his climate goals.

Likely results?

Many expect Dutton’s coalition to pick up seats in the House of Representatives.

An Australian government has not been ousted after a single term since 1931, when the nation was grappling with the Great Depression.

But Australian governments almost always lose ground in their second election and Labor only holds 77 of the 151 seats in the House of Representatives, where governments need a majority. Redistributions mean there will be only 150 seats after the next election.

One likely outcome is a minority government supported by independent or minor party legislators.

The 2022 election brought a record 19 lawmakers who were not aligned to either the government or opposition into the Parliament.

Unaligned lawmakers could be crucial to whether Labor or Dutton’s conservative Liberal Party forms Australia’s first minority election since the 2010 election.

Adam Bandt, leader of the minor Greens party, said his lawmakers would support a Labor minority government if Labor met Greens’ demands.

Those demands included a ban on new coal and gas extraction projects, providing free dental deva for all and capping rent increases, he said.

The Greens supported a Labor minority government elected in 2010 and initiated a short-lived Australian carbon tax which was repealed by a conservative government after the next election.